Don't confuse this
1960s outfit with a contemporary Israeli trance outfit. (There are some hysterical
complaints on Amazon from folks who bought this 1960s artifact by mistake.)

Bernice
Ross and Lor Crane had enjoyed some mid-1960s successes as songwriters
(Danny White's "White On White") and as producers. Crane
produced several of Chad and Jeremy's hit singles and albums. 1968 saw
the pair dipping their creative toes into psych via the studio project The
Astral Projection. Musically "The
Astral Scene"
is an oddity falling somewhere between Curt Boetcher-styled sunshine pop,
Association-styled top-40 and Animated Egg styled exploito. Ross and Crane
wrote all of the material but it was performed by an all star cast of
sessions players including guitarists Al Gorgoni and Hugh McCrackin.
Thematically tracks such as 'The Sunshine Seekers' and 'Plant Your Seeds'
were highly orchestrated tying together as a full-fledged concept
piece. If you waded through the extensive back panel liner notes by
Barbara Christensen, the plot line had something to do with the concept of
escaping the physical body to experience spiritual embodiment.
Certainly something many of us ponder day in and day out ... In spite
of the goofy titles and lyrics ('Today, I saw The Sunrise') and the fact the
arrangements were full of rather spacey instrumentation, virtually of the
songs were quite commercial. It's easy to imagine stuff like '(Mind Flight)
... Overture The Airways Of Imagination' or 'The Happening People' having
been adopted for some sort of 1960s television theme song.

This
has absolutely nothing to do with the music, but the album's also kind of
interesting in that it carries a dedication to 'Oric Bovar'. Bovar's
best known as a guru who attracted a following in Broadway circles.
Folks such as Carol Burnett, Marsha Mason, Bernadette Peters and Neil Simon
fell under his spell and helped him to become quite popular for a short
period of time. Originally renowned for generating accurate
astrological charts and prescribing medications that could provide one with
inner peace, Bovar was actually a nut case. Convinced he was Jesus
Christ, he instructed his followers to start celebrating Christmas on August
29th (his birthday). He started arranging marriages between followers,
mandated strict diets for them and forbade extramarital sex among his
followers. Bovar also attracted attention in the Fall of 1976 when he
tried to resurrect the body of a 29 year old disciple who had died of
cancer. Nothing wrong being positive, but Bovar and a couple of
followers spent two months chanting over the decomposing body in a New York
apartment. Someone finally called the cops and he was arrested for
violating city health ordnances. In April 1977, a couple of hours
before he was to appear in court Bovar decided he would jump of of a 10th
floor window with the intention of appearing in court cloaked in resurrected
glory. Needless to say Bovar missed his court appointment.